We at nbayracing.com have nothing but respect and gratitude for the people who organize regattas and serve on RC boats and Protest Committees and such, but the folks who put together the Hospice Championship Regatta take it all one step further.

They bring in teams who have won their local Hospice Regattas from all over the country to compete for a National Championship. And they do it on borrowed boats. And not just on beater J24's or Rainbows or something, but well-kept, well-appointed and, well, damn expensive J105's.

Say what you want about the boats, 105's do have some detractors, but, they provide a very nice OD racing platform for a team of 5 or 6 people.

This year, they had 23 teams competing on just 12 borrowed J105's so they had to rotate teams on and off boats, which makes for a long day for owners (or their reps) who must be on board during competition.

Complicate things by throwing in 2 days of very light air, and you have the makings of a logistical nightmare for:

- giving everyone enough time on the water and

- determining fair criteria to compute a National Champion.

Fortunately, Mother Nature chimed in with a gift on Sunday morning with the breeze coming in at 17-22 with puffs to 27 in the morning and then settling back to 14-18 with slightly higher puffs in the afternoon.

Teams are assigned their rides, randomly, the night before racing, by pulling a golf ball out of a bucket (figure out the symbolism of that in your spare time, please) and after a brief intro to the owner, crews are expected to show up at the boats normal berth the next morning. Team Havre de Grace (consisting of myself, Skipper Tom Schwartz, Trimmer Terry Reese, Main Trimmer Carl Schaefer and Bowman Evan Bertold) had rather decent luck by "chosing" very competitive boats from local 105 Fleet Three, "Rum Puppy" and "Varmint" that, not coincidentally, also had terrific Owners/Reps.

(left) Ultra good sport and excellent coach, Mike O'Toole relaxes after loaning his boat to Team HdG for four big-air races on Sunday.

Mike did not even flinch when an uphill mark rounding looked like a potential demolition derby in the making. Some situational awareness by competing boats and some deft manuevering from Skipper Tom Schwartz had "Varmint" popping out of the fray completely unscathed.

TEAM HdG:

Day One was really light and the RC shortened our only race of the day just at the right time, allowing us to take a bullet. So there we were, at the end of the opener looking spiff in First Place in our Division of 12 boats.

(left) Team HdG looking pretty smug Saturday evening, the night before things went a little less well, on Day Three.

Day Two was just as light as Day One, but half of the 23 boats got two races in in the morning. After the boats were swapped out, the air droppped to zilch and the other half of the fleet got zero races in.

You can see that this presented somewhat of a scoring nightmare. Half the fleet has 3 scored races, half the fleet has one...

Day Three was a total gift. With a 9 a.m. rendez-vous and winds at about 20, it was pretty simple business to get 2 races done by 11:30...even though they were NON-SPIN (figure it out...borrowed boats, winds gusting to 27 kn, newbie crew on a lot of the 105's...if you were the PRO, would you say chutes are allowed?) That brought all 23 teams up to having three races scored.

Then, a bunch of quick calculations and the boats on the course who did not qualify for the Championship were dismissed, told to go back to AYC and swap with the teams who had qualified, waiting there for boats (EYC was deemed unsafe, due to the sea state in front of the YC).

That afternoon, we got off another two quick races and the deal was sealed. When was the last time you did four races on a big boat out of Annapolis and were done by 2pm? Doesn't happen often and speaks to the efficiency and professionalism of the race committee the National Hospice Alliance had on board for the event.

(left) Note to self: renting a house for an event is worth every cent over what a hotel room goes for. We lived in Big Pink for 3 days, loving life.

Unfortunately, rumor has it this house that Horn Point Marina rents out to transients got sold the day after we moved out.

There goes the neighborhood.

NBAYRACING.COM has gotten feedback from some of the people who came in from out of town and the general consensus is: Hospice Championship 2007 was top flight. And, lest I forget to mention, the event raised oodles of cash for an organization that does an enornous amount of good for people!

Again, hat's off to Championship Committee Chair, Katie Zeglis and her crew for a terrific weekend.

(below) Party site for the Saturday evening soiree...I don't think we're at The Annex anymore, Toto.

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